apple tv hacks

FireCore has just released Seas0nPass 0.7.7 that features support for Lion and a handful of bug fixes. It’s generally designed to jailbreak your atv2 running iOS 4.3.x (Apple TV 2 4.2.2 software version) but, according to nitoTV, it also supports the latest iOS 5 beta.

Similar to PwnageTool, Seas0nPass allows you to jailbreak your atv2 by creating custom Apple TV IPSW files and restoring them in iTunes. The new version of Seas0nPass is Mac only – it adds support for Lion and fixes Mac specific bugs.

Here is the tutorial on how to jailbreak your Apple TV 2 on iOS 4.3 (Apple TV 4.2.2) or iOS 5 using Seas0nPass 0.7.7:

Mark Gurman and Sonny Dickson at 9to5Mac found that Apple has included hidden bluetooth support in their second-generation Apple TV. Bluetooth support is not present within the current Apple TV OS, but the device does currently ship with a Wi-Fi/Bluetooth chip installed and, according to 9to5Mac, Apple’s next major operating system, iOS 5, will turn on this bluetooth support.

Gurman’s guess is that Apple is positioning this bluetooth support mainly for keyboards (this could mean the company is working on Safari for ATV2) but perhaps this would also make it possible to hook up your iPhone, iPad or iPod touch (having more controllers would make bringing games and apps to Apple TV simpler).

aTV Flash (black), Firecore’s flagship product for the 2nd generation Apple TV, has been updated to Beta6. According to Firecore, Beta6 includes “huge improvements” in playback performance that come by way of a brand brand-new, lightweight player that has been built from the ground up specifically for iOS. This new player is said to empower Apple TV 2 to play a wide variety of media formats “without having to sacrifice the simplicity of the native Apple TV interface.”

Firecore has announced the release of aTV Flash version 4.3 for the original Apple TV. Included are some new features, as well as a number of improvements to existing features and core components.

The new update includes File Sharing (SMB Server) that allows you to stream non-iTunes media stored on your Apple TV (including media stored on external drives) to other devices including a second Apple TV (silver or black) or a Mac/PC computer.

aTV Flash (black), Firecore’s flagship product for the 2nd generation Apple TV, has been updated to Beta5. This time the developers’ main focus has been on building and improving the Media Player feature: according to Firecore, the Media Player has received a “big boost” in Beta5, but is still under heavy development with many more features and improvements still to come.

Apple released minor software update for Apple TV 2 – labeled 4.2.2 – which generally fixes some audio and video playback issues (see the full list of changes below). The IPSW name is still 4.3, but the build version changed from 8F202 to 8F305. @i0n1c has already updated Apple TV 2 kernel for his original 4.3.1 untether. NitoTV confirmed that the new untether works “beautifully” and he said there should be a new Seas0nPass out very soon.